It does seem outrageous, doesn’t it? A Mavs team that in its last meeting with the Knicks won by 50 follows it up with Saturday’s 128-94 loss at home to end an NBA-season-best 13-game success streak? That makes the angry message lines justifiable ...

This sort of thing has never happened before!

Except … yes, it has. In fact, this sort of thing happens EVERY TIME a team beats another team by 50.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m about to tell you. I'm as bothered by this result (and maybe a detectable trend) as the next schmoe. The Mavs, despite being 45-21 and in second place in the West – and despite being 13-2 since the All-Star Break trade – have an unfortunate habit of allowing themselves to trail games at halftime, of falling behind by double-figures in games against teams that shouldn’t be 10 points better than them, and of requiring late-game precision of themselves to close out opponents. As all these seemingly-panic-inducing warts are popping up, the Mavs habitually demonstrate an enviable confidence and cool in marching back into games, night after night.

But against the Knicks? The 22-43 Knicks? The New York team that came in having lost 14 of 17 this season and 15 of the last 16 meetings with the Mavs?

Yeah, the Knicks. Because not even the New Yorkers – especially when they take inspiration from having lost by half-a-hundred in that record-setting debacle back on Nov. 24 – are going to regularly allow Dallas to rebound from being down 10 at the half, then allowing a 17-3 in the third, then being down by as much as 37 in the fourth.

But let’s get to it:

*The Mavs failures are somehow different than other good teams’ failures!

Wrong.

I won’t bother going through the entire league here in search of scream/whimper results. Let’s just do it with a single team. … Let’s see. … how about the Knicks?

As poor as the Knicks are, the Mavs are among the handful of contenders they’ve victimized this year. They won 126-99 over the Suns. They won 93-84 vs. Portland. They won 98-94 vs. Charlotte. And in the truly mystifying “Knicks Win’’ storyline of their year, they’ve played a damn good Atlanta three times.

And according to John’s own words, the Mavs were going to beat New York and the next four foes, too, to stretch the streak to 18.

Don’t let Trollinger have it both ways here.

*Winning by 50 over a team. … and in the next meeting losing to them!? That’s ridiculous! It’s never happened before!

Wrong.

Followers of Dallas Basketball are fortunate to be fortified by many big-brained basketball people. Our thanks to mavstats for this gem:

Contrary to the understandable assumption that when Team A beats Team B by 50, Team A should beat ‘em again in the ensuing meeting … the last four NBA teams to win by 50-plus points actually lost the next meeting to that same team.